Why Fulfilment by eBay is crucial in Australia… But what about the UK and US?

eBay have a problem in Australia – for many years they have been the defacto marketplace but now Amazon has arrived on the continent they’ve got a serious contender. That’s why they’ve launched Fulfilment by eBay first in Australia and it’s also why many other marketplace tools such as eBay on Google Assistant and and Image search were first to come to Australia as well as their virtual reality department store.

eBay have partnered with Australia Post and will carry out the fulfilment with a new start-up, Fulfilio, who Australia Post has invested in.

eBay’s killer advantage is that they’ve now got more warehouses than Amazon and can offer faster delivery than Amazon with warehouses in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth allowing for same-day deliveries. That may change in the future, but for the moment eBay is ahead of the game.

Here at Tamebay we’ve long thought that eBay should leverage their scale to negotiate better carrier rates then sellers can access on their own. It’s somewhat embarrassing that relatively small sellers can get a better deal from a carrier than eBay can offer through their own negotiated discount rates. It’s good to see them flexing their muscles in Australia, although one has to ask why they waited for Amazon to be a threat before doing so. eBay at a couple of decades old and shipping millions of parcels a day in established territories is lagging in negotiating discounts for their sellers.

The burning question now is, will eBay partner with Royal Mail to offer similar fulfilment services and what about USPS in the US or the German and French national carriers.

Sioux

8 months ago

Part of the eBay 10% is to counteract the new import charges of 10% for all goods bought outside of that country -it is not just to do with Amazon –